I watched a video recently that really made me stop and think. This video was of a woman and her young daughter standing outside of a Target, explaining that they would no longer be giving their business to Target, because they were not accommodating their needs.

At first, after watching this video, I was incredibly angry. How could someone be so horrible and cruel? How can they not understand the needs of others as well as their own? But then it hit me. It's the "me me me" syndrome starting up again.

There was a Time Magazine cover that featured talk of the "me me me" generation, writing that this label was meant for millennials. But the issue here is, every generation has had a "me" complex. It will also continue to be this way, especially when people like the woman in this video refuse to understand other people's lives and how they are affected when certain circumstances prevent them from... Oh, I don't know... using the bathroom safely, for instance.

Everyone who is so afraid of Target's new bathroom and changing room policies needs to understand, this is an ever-changing society that will not always be the way you want it to be. This country does not exist to please you and only you. It serves to protect all, and if this doesn't happen, then why have a free country?

The transgender citizens, who this new Target policy is aimed towards, are able to feel comfortable, healthy, and normal in their everyday lives. The policy does not, however, prevent straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual or queer citizens from going to the bathroom or changing clothes. Rather this gives the opportunity for everyone to be equal, which I think is a step in the right direction for our country.

The biggest fuss being made is about the children. We don't want them hurt and we don't want them molested in bathrooms by men dressed as women, or by women dressed as men. But here's just a couple of statistics for you. Thirty percent of child sexual abusers are family members, and 60 percent are close family friends, or someone they trust. Twenty-three percent of individuals caught and convicted of child sexual abuse are under the age of 18. Eighty-four percent of child sexual abuse cases occur in a residence (of the victim or the abuser), and 90 percent of children who were sexually abused knew their abuser.

With these statistics in mind, let me break it down for you. The transgender community has been alive and well for a long, long time. And as long as it has been alive, there has been a transgender person using the bathroom in the identity they felt comfortable in. This means that yes, at some point, you most likely have been in the bathroom with a transgender individual. The difference between then and now? It hasn't been an idea that people have actually thought about.

I personally have never put any thought as to who actually goes into the women's restroom, because they've all looked like women. Which is the point. The irony of this is that it is likely that no one will ever know that there is a person who was not originally that gender using the bathroom with other people of their identifying gender. More to the point, why should it matter? The likelihood of anything bad happening to you or your child at the hands of a member of this community, let alone anyone, in a public restroom, is very small.

Because of this, we see the statistics above and must understand, the issue is not with the people who simply want the ability to go to the bathroom and change clothes without ridicule. The issue is with people who are simply too scared to admit that they fear what they don't understand.

Fear is a healthy part of life, and is understandable when you see the way another person lives is completely different from you and how you live. But when you let that fear turn into hate, and let it get in the way of another person's ability to actually lead a life of normalcy, no matter if you think it's normal or not, this is incredibly selfish.

We as a "me" country are ruining people's potential happiness, taking away their basic human rights, and this isn't acceptable. You can feel the way you feel about it personally, but letting it affect your children and the people around you, simply because you do not agree is incredibly inconsiderate. When you use your children as a smokescreen for your own deep-seeded hate, you are simply ingraining a whole new generation with the "me me me" idea. In the end, this creates even more issues than simply letting a transgender individual use the bathroom in the stall he or she feels most comfortable in.

I know that this is a hard topic to consider, but when we realize that the children are in no more danger going to the unisex bathroom at Target than they are going home with a family member or trusted friend, we begin to understand that our own self-obsessed needs are getting in the way of bigger, more important questions that should be answered.

Why are we arguing about a bathroom when Donald Trump may become president? Why are we fighting about transgender rights when we still don't have clean water in areas of the United States? There are more pressing matters to be discussed, and until we stop arguing about a bathroom, our next generation is going to go down the toilet.